Which museum became the first U.S. institution to give Georgia O'Keeffe a retrospective in 1946?

The Museum of Modern Art gave Georgia O'Keeffe a retrospective in 1946.

The exhibition at MoMA was a major institutional recognition of O'Keeffe's importance and is commonly identified as the museum's first retrospective devoted to a woman artist. It presented the breadth of her career, including abstractions, flowers, architectural subjects, and landscapes.

A retrospective differs from a focused display of new work because it surveys an artist's development across multiple years. For O'Keeffe, that broader view helped audiences see connections among subjects that might otherwise appear unrelated. Her approach consistently turned recognizable forms into simplified compositions with strong color and scale.

The exhibition took place after the death of Alfred Stieglitz, her husband and longtime dealer, in 1946. O'Keeffe subsequently managed her own career more independently. The MoMA retrospective helped secure her place in the established history of American modernism.